


Foolish drabbles

by redux (sian22)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha!Steve, And love, Brock still really can't quite believe, Christmas, Drabbles, Easter, Fools Rush In - Freeform, Multi, Omega!Brock, Omega!Bucky, One big dysfunctional avengers family, Puppies, Redeemable Brock, Traditions, renewal and acceptance, slices of life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-11 15:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10468656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian22/pseuds/redux
Summary: A place to collect all the little Fools Rush In drabbles that I have done over the last year.  A testament to how inspiring @weirdlet and @andartha's epic is that it keeps sparking things in my head.   Love you both.Not in necessarily any order.. mostly gapfil or post Fools...





	1. lazy sunday morning

**Author's Note:**

> Benji’s been desperate to try out the new camera and Brock’s trying to keep him quiet at 5:30 on a Sunday morning.. 
> 
> Prompted by this picture posted by hak-kun (original source here.. http://hak-kun.tumblr.com/image/142502173277)
> 
>  

It is his own damn fault for passing on that part of his genetics.  Benji is awake and desperate to see the other guys but really..  5-f-ing thirty?  When no mission alert has gone off and the little piglet has had them all up  _twice_  in the middle of the night with teething pains?  A molar is cutting through.  It's no picnic for the sprog but James can’t sleep through  _anything_  unless he is hurt; and once Brock and James are up,  out of the safety of his reach, well Steve’s fuzzily waking too. 

Brock sighs.  He thought babyhood was bad for shut-eye…toddlerhood just might be worse.  

He stares down at 3 feet of bright and overly awake, juice-jacked, stubborn (thank  _you_  Steve) little boy.  There is no way he’s going to distract Benji from that room before breakfast is on the board.  The sort of firmness it would take is likely to end in tears, especially when both of them are sleep-deprived. 

Brock runs a hand blearily across his face and makes the sort of snap decision his STRIKE Team adored him for.  

Maybe they can combine the two desires, distraction and visitation, and still keep the boy a little quiet.

“Ok Kiddo….Stealth mission time…think you are ready?”  

Benji halts and,  practically vibrating, stands almost to attention,  plastering a serious  duck-frown on his face.  It's a look that kills Brock every time--Benji has copied from it Barnes..On his omega-mate it just looks dorky.  On their son it looks adorable.

He carefully rearranges his shit-eating grin and places hands on hips.. “First rule is recon.”

Big dark eyes look up solemnly as Benji nods.  “K..”

 Brock reaches for the camera on the coffee table, squats (creaking knees bedammed) and  set the Canon on automatic.  

“Agent I need you to go get intelligence for the mission.”  He points to the closed door of their bedroom.  “Infiltrate, _silently._ Get pictures of the targets and where they are so we can analyze and formulate a suitable assault.”

He presses the small autofocus into a sticky hand.  “ Mission briefing understood?”  

“Yes sir.”   The  apple juice-smudged face is nodding silently, camera clutched to his chest.    

“Be prepared for extraction if necessary in 5 minutes. soldier” he admonishes, hoping that is enough.   Too much clicking would likely wake Steve and Buck but at least, if it happens,  that is a calmer reveille than 35 pounds of wriggling, shrieking boy cannon-balling into the middle of the bed.      

“Ready… set..  mark ”

When the agent has tiptoed back and is sitting chin in hands at the kitchen island, distracted by the promised diorama of pancake dinosaur lazying beside the syrup pond under an orange segment and sausage palm tree and whipped cream clouds-  Brock takes a moment to analyze the intelligence.  

What he sees makes him gasp.  

The picture is exactly Benji’s eye height from the far side of the bed.   James, the heat-seeking missile, has snuggled over to the centre, claiming the warm spot Brock  had vacated a little while before.  Steve has tucked him in,  has found a new body to wrap around, to enfold,  _protect_ ,  

Perfect.  A pair of supersoldiers sleeping on a day with nothing exploding, crashing, burning-other than the sausage if their mate doesn’t pay attention.  

It  will be always be one of his favourite snaps


	2. rare gems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fast forward, post-Fools..Benji is growing up..and someone, someone may just be believing the other shoe won't drop

It was to Jaimie’s mind, the rarest of all rare gems. 

Precious, almost painfully beautiful, blinding in its brilliance and every bit as intense and fiery as the heart that pumped below.  

Brock’s unguarded smile was always gained most easily by Ben.  Sometimes by him.  More rarely Steve.  Only after painstaking effort to shutter out the winds of doubt could they catch him, relaxed and unsuspecting, brushing pancake flour off his forehead, pinned by a tickle or a lick, or better yet a kiss, between an upright golden furnace and cool vibranium.   It was fleeting as a supernova, just as inclined to race outward and engulf every nerve and sinew with abandon (even the forelock that would not, could not, lay down of its own accord) before collapsing back to the flat and densely attentive, resting frown. 

At first he secretly counted them. 

Two. Then ten.  Then twenty-five.  Two hundred was for the day Ben first learned to ride.   Twofifty for the ice cream that dribbled out from a bottom-bitten cone.   Four hundred for the epic outfield catch that Benji, heart and absolute ruler of their little world, achieved.

They came easier and more frequently in time, but still he counted.  Automatically.  Cataloguing the expansion of the universe of happiness that widened with every breath.  Until one special day.

“What?”  Steve stopped trying for the perfect angled shot and bumped his shoulder, blond brows pulled into a puzzled frown. 

Over by the real needle-dropping, water-slurping, heaven-scented Christmas tree, their omega-mate fended off the attentions of a chocolate labrador.

 Benji was helping.  By placing Rocky back on Mom’s stomach each time he tumbled off.

James glanced over to his grinning alpha and shrugged.  Should have guessed that supersoldier hearing caught everything. 

“Nothing.”  He slipped the arm he had grown-to-love about the waist of the man-he-had-always-loved, and sighed. 

“I think we hit the motherlode.”    


	3. can easter bunnys have red hair?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock never expected the Easter bunny would really come... and then it happened. Damn things can sneak up on a guy unawares...
> 
> A birthday present for the wonderful Weirdlet

It’s a goddamn Easter miracle…

Well, maybe not a miracle..not as such..but it sure as hell is an amazing feat. 

Brock surreptitiously drops a kiss to Benji’s dozing thicket of black hair and surveys the scene.  The giant trestle table set up in Clint’s old barn looks straight of a magazine.  Pepper’s crew, buoyed by Laura’s throat-searing coffee and fresh gingersnaps, have spent hours hanging up twinkling lights and a real chandelier from the loft.  Palest green tablecloths are crowned by masses of elegant lilies in square cut tumblers.  The funky mismatched white china and antique silverware are at home with mason jars for drinks.  

 It’s artful and picturesque and so not what he had expected.  

Especially the seating cards. 

His, beside Jaimie’s and across from Steve’s, makes his heart do a little awkward skip.  “ _Brock_ ” is picked out in simple silver pen and stiff white card.  Not ‘and’ --Benji’s formal “ _Benjamin_ ” stands right beside—but his own name.  On its own merits.   As if he is welcome without the sprog.    

Ms. Potts has taste…and tact.

 (Something one cannot exactly say about her boyfriend, Brock snarks to himself before quashing hard on that bitchy inner voice.  Stark _has_ been keeping host his sorry ass for months.  Putting up with endless tentacle jokes is part of the anticipated penance..)

“Something missing?” 

He looks up to catch a look of concern in seafoam eyes that in this light nearly match the cloth.  Jamie’s metal hand plows a calming circle on his upper back, the faint licorice-sharp scent of worry wafting off his chest.   The young omega knows his mate; gets that playing happy families feels like more a head fake than a mission goal,  like a kid pressed against the glass at Macy’s, oo’ing over the flower-caparisoned carousel unicorns and gold-foiled Peter Rabbits cuz Brock knows Fairy Talestm are not for him.  Never were--between the old man’s drunken raging silences and the orange prison newbie uniform.  But what’s he gonna say…the straight-up truth?

_Yeah Buck…what’s missing is the end…where I wake from the dream in a cold blank cell and find it all ain’t real._

Yeah.  Nah..  Brock’s not gonna hurt James's for anything-he'd crawl through glass before adding to his burdens.  The now former Soldier’s given up too much blood-drenched intel and sleep for that.

Brock shakes his head, leans into the steadiness of the hand.“Nope… just the coffee, ” he says,  nodding to the lack of a mug beside his spot.   Some days he could climb out of his skin for a shot of dark-roasted caffeinated heaven.

“Shouldn’t a given it up for Lent.”   Buck teases, absently rubbing a huge gentle finger against Benji’s cheek.  Lent hah--that would’ve been a cakewalk.  Coffee’s off for however long he’ll nurse… 6 months.  A year.  Whatever.   He’ll deal.  Just so long as the boy is happy and content. 

They sit down, eventually (once Cooper and Lia and Nathanial have been coraled), to a testament to how firmly Pepper can organize---and how much a bunch of broken, half-functioning, nerdy superheroes need a taste of home.  

The spread is epic.  Everyone’s traditions and favourites are duly represented.  Steve  and James’s favourite lamb and mint sauce.  Sam’s grandmom’s coconut cake and sweet tea.   Bruce’s  love from months in India’s slums:  puran poli and thandai-from Holi, flavored with nuts and cardamom and rose petals.   Natalia’s choice is the startling, but startlingly good, prune and caraway ice cream;   Wanda’s  is _pasca_ , a golden cake filled with cheese and braided round the edge to match her hair. 

It’s all good.   They whole table laughs when Brock offers Benji a little mashed up asparagus—no way Jose—and when the little guy screws up his face at the coolness of the ice cream.  After the tiniest lick Benji’s chubby hands are reaching for the spoon.   Turns out he has his dad’s sweet tooth.    

When they are stuffed to groaning and once Thor, the unblushing God of Fertility,  pronounces a complicated Asgard blessing,  Pepper, chief collie dog,  rises and shepherds them all outside. 

Brock’s aghast.  Dear God(s) they aren’t going to play football or some stupid team-building shit??  Nope--he is not up for that, not with this bunch of A-type, hyper-serumed-aholes-who-actually-hate-his-guts and so he hangs back, pops the little guy on the tit, takes his time in the washroom with the resulting diaper bomb.

“Brock…come on, we’re waiting for you!” 

He _smells_ Steve before he sees him.   Reluctantly, he grabs another dry nursing shirt from the diaper bag because fuck doesn’t that make his milk let down _again_ and the pads are goddam useless.   _When is this shit (_ Steve, moth-like, advancing and backing away while he…ridiculously, pointlessly, reacts to the one who knocked him up) _ever going to stop?_  It’s a dance—instinctive bond and iron-hard control-- and he is too fucking tired to keep on concentrating on the steps. 

He adjusts his sleeve,  passes the sleeping football of his son into his father’s protective defensive arms,  and heads out of the house, running shaking fingers through his hair.    

Stops short and stunned at the sight of the most unexpected miracle of all. 

_Oh my fucking god she’d listened._

When Pepper had first asked the question he hadn’t processed what she’d meant.

_“Rumlow..what nationality is that?”   Pepper taps a pen against her teeth and Brock looks up, startled,  from behind defensive barricade of washing up.  He finds if he has his hands submerged the gang usually leave him to brood in peace._

_She’s asking him?   He is not part of this motley crew..not an Avenger- so the point of it doesn’t resonate._

_“German. Why?”_

_“You’ll see…”_

He did.   Now.   In living flaming glory before his face. 

 “This is a most excellent Midgard ritual.  I know it.”  Thor beams. His face is lit by the ruddy glow of the bonfire and his arms are spread wide around as many waists as he can reach.  “Brock, come close. Welcome the Sun with us.  All on whom the light of the fire spills shall have fruitful fields and health.”

It’s well contained.  The warmth is not too hot on his abused skin, there’s no panic there but he’s rooted to the spot—he’s not… can’t be… _not ever_..    But in the face of Pepper’s worried smile he finds he has to adjust the mission goals.   Lets Jamie’s fingers pull him close and stands, heart hammering, while Steve nestles with Benji on the other side.   Marvels that someone he barely knows has gone out of her way to make his family’s threadbare traditions part of their own.    

The Easter bonfire.  From Germany by way of Brimara, Italy.  

In the ramshackle camps of the Midwest the _Osterhase_ had had trouble finding food to spare, certainly there’d been no chocolate, no almond paste.. nothing to make _colomba,_  but there had been wood.  And matches.  Lonely men and women everywhere needed a little companionship against the shifting winds of fate.   A generation later even his half-pickled, abandoned omega-mom could find a few bare sticks.

He nods, once, to Pepper.  Lets his shoulders settle a little lower down.   Takes a steadying breath and inhales deeply of the calming scent of happy, sleepy pup, realizing perhaps, just perhaps, there is a path he can see through all the shit.  

Grandpop would have been so proud. 


End file.
